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AP Psychology - Myers Language and Cognition Flashcards

Advanced Placement Psychology
Enterprise High School, Redding, CA
All terms from Myers Psychology for AP (BFW Worth, 2011)

Terms : Hide Images
5625323190cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.0
5625323191concepta mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.1
5625323192prototypea mental image or best example of a category.2
5625323193algorithma methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone—use of heuristics.3
5625323194heuristica simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.4
5625323195insighta sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.5
5625323196behaviorist theorythe theory of language development that argues humans learn language through trial/error and gradually learn more effective ways to speak to get what they want6
5625323197confirmation biasa tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.7
5625323198fixationthe inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.8
5625323199mental seta tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.9
5625323200functional fixednessthe tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.10
5625323201representativeness heuristicjudging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.11
5625323202availability heuristicestimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.12
5625323203nativist theorythe theory of language development that states that humans have a natural, innate ability to develop language (theorized by Chomsky)13
5625323204belief perseveranceclinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.14
5625323205Language Acquisition Devicethis structure allows for the innate development of language (theorized by Chomsky)15
5625323206framingthe way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.16
5625323207languageour spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.17
5625323208phonemein language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.18
5625323209morphemein a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).19
5625323210grammarin a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.20
5625323211semanticsthe set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.21
5625323212syntaxthe rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.22
5625323213babbling stagebabies spontaneously uttering a variety of words, such as ah-goo23
5625323214one-word stagethe stage in which children speak mainly in single words24
5625323215two-word stagethey start uttering two word sentences25
5625323216telegraphic speechearly speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.26
5625323217linguistic determinismWhorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.27

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